


Fault Line

by orphan_account



Category: Samurai Flamenco
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 11:07:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Goto knows that Hazama’s just a kid in a suit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fault Line

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing is more appropriate for the holidays than misplaced angst. Some minor spoilers but nothing for or after episode 7.

\---

For a long time, he stared at the drying cleaning bag propped against his desk. The handle was hopelessly twisted and crumpled from the way Hazama had been wringing it, his nervousness subdued yet peaking erratically with short, jittery motions that bobbed like static. Twenty minutes brushed past with only a reported lost bicycle (or, judging by the stink of the man’s breath, drunkenly misplaced bicycle) and an inquisitive bird who looked very curiously at the shine of his shoes, leaving nothing for him to do but stare at the bag, a mindless, mass-produced _thing_ that was handed out, rolled up, shoved, dropped, remembered, forgotten, and ultimately discarded by the hundreds on a daily basis; its utilitarian purpose fought with its potential sentimentality. The design was forgettable.

He didn’t even care about the shirt inside, but clearly, _clearly_ , Hazama did.

“That kid looked like one of those Shinjuku boys.”

He started at the sound of Hashimoto’s voice, his knee banging against the underside of his desk. For once, the older officer chose not to chide him for inattention.

“What kid?”

“The one in here earlier. You seemed to know him.”

“Yes, I do. And he’s not a host,” Goto replied, rolling his eyes, “although I can see where you’d get that impression from…”

“He was far too polite.”

“Isn’t it a good thing if the young people are polite?”

Hashimoto gave him a withering glare. “For God’s sake, Goto, don’t talk like that. You’re far too young for it.” As an elderly woman passed the police box, Hashimoto nodded in greeting and murmured a ‘hello’.

Even though the position in the doorway was by far the least desirable of those in the police box, Hashimoto had a fanatical devotion to it and frequently used his seniority to snatch the position from Goto, who was only too happy to relinquish it. Of course, standing in the doorway all day gave Hashimoto a license to whine endlessly about how his feet hurt or his back was acting up or, his most favorite complaint of all, that being around Goto made him feel very, very old.

“I’m going to be fifty soon,” Hashimoto admitted once the sidewalk was empty.

“In ten years,” Goto mumbled, cracking the pages of the newspaper he was pretending to read. Idly, he kicked the dry cleaning bag over and shoved it under his desk. It had a deflated, pathetic shape. He tried not to look at it.

In the doorway, Hashimoto began to rub the small of his back. Time blurred. “Shift’s over in an hour,” Hashimoto said.

Hashimoto was touching his shoulder.

“Shift’s over.”

He dragged the bag out of its corner with the heel of his foot, the material crackling in protest. As he walked home, it swayed and rubbed the side of his leg, mocking in its forced asymmetry. The bundle of plastic and fabric inside tipped and rolled from side to side. It was a cheap shirt. It wasn’t worth a drying cleaning bill. Of course, Hazama was a stupid kid with too much money. More than that, he was a _kid_ in a bicycle helmet and a sweatshirt running around the streets at night lecturing senior citizens on garbage handling and arguing with drunken salarymen on sidewalk etiquette. That first night, he proudly rolled up his shirtsleeve to show off the scratch marks left by the stray cat he was attempting to tame. There were two first aid kits in his apartment, both of which he claimed to know how to use. Goto had pried and found everything still encased in plastic and ordered with the mechanical neatness of a new product. He passed an alleyway with smashed glass and shadowed figures. Hazama posed a lot. His arms would jerk with excitement and rise up over his head and shoot out to the sides in clean, chopping motions painstakingly recreated from some brightly named “hero” with a mask and a stunt double and the clean, secure knowledge that the director will bring his hand down to mark the series’ final scene and let the actor drop the name and calmly, securely walk away.

\---

Nights spent at Hazama’s were akin to those on another planet. Time was divided by the running time of Harakiri Sunshine episodes and the only sustenance came in colourful packages with cheerful masked characters on the front. When Hazama went on about x director’s work in the industry or the illustrious backstory of archrival y, his words began to tumble and slur together into an incomprehensible gibberish that rapidly increased in force and speed as his hands swung around in large, encompassing gestures powered by his endless appreciation for Harakiri Sunshine’s wardrobe department or whatever thing he was so enamored with. When Hazama grew so flustered and jittery that he began to flit about the room aimlessly, posing and shouting all the while, it was easy to forget how timid he could be, how vulnerable he seemed when he shut his eyes and admitted to having no friends.

Hazama’s eyes suddenly grew very bright. “Hey! You’re wearing the shirt,” he exclaimed, half his face caught in the projector’s still image, a silver axe lodging itself in his forehead. Goto had to look down and found himself surprised that, yes, it was indeed the same blue and white shirt.

“I could not have survived without this shirt,” he said drily. “Samurai Flamenco has saved my life by returning it so promptly.”

Hazama pouted. “You don’t have to be so sarcastic, Goto,” he muttered, crossing his arms. The axe moved next to his right eye, the transparent image changing a cut of blue to dusty grey. “I’d lend you my clothes if you needed them…”

“ _Hopefully_ that never happens,” Goto grumbled. “I would look ridiculous.”

“Hey!”

He tried not to laugh at Hazama’s genuine outrage and failed. “I meant that in a _good_ way, I swear. You’re far too modern, what with being a model and all. It just wouldn’t suit me.”

Hazama smiled in that terrifying I-want-to-be-helpful way of his and said, “Some of the new fashion magazines are very good. I could lend you some if you want. Of course they’re only the ones I’m in, but it would give you something to do at work.”

“H-Hey!”

Hazama’s smile turned mocking. “I meant that in a _good_ way, I swear.”

Goto desperately wished for something alcoholic and buried his head in his hands. “I can’t believe I’m taking this from some upstart model…”

Snatching the remote off the table, Hazama resumed the episode and a sudden burst of sound and motion entered the room. As the red ranger staggered to his feet on screen, Hazama stayed rooted in place, the straw-blond of his hair blending with the scene and distorting the villain’s masked face. Goto leaned forward. Hazama’s lips were moving with the red ranger’s speech, every pause and inflection faithfully reproduced. The villain fell without the ranger losing his life, Hazama’s breath coming out with a sharp hiss after the tense moment passed. It was endearing when he recited grand declarations of camaraderie and willpower, but Goto felt a chill when he mimed words of death, when he used another’s voice to parrot rhetoric on self-sacrifice and the “final battle” and death, death, _death_.

\---

Hashimoto gave him a strange, probing look when he walked into the police box that morning. The magazine tucked under his arm had a familiar face on it.

“See?” Goto said, holding out the cover. “He’s a model, not a host.”

Grimacing, Hashimoto replied, “I really don’t see the difference.”

Goto rolled his eyes. He was tempted to say something like “ _Get with the times, old man.”_ , but doing so would send Hashimoto into hysterics about aging and arthritis and _“What if I have grandkids but they don’t visit me?”_. The first visitor of the day had found a rusted green bicycle shoved in their doorway, the account perfectly matching that of the (drunken) businessman from the day before. Such a mundane occurrence was hardly worth noting and Goto’s hand jittered as he penciled in a sparse report. His phone vibrated and brightened to a short, peppy text from his girlfriend sprinkled with too many emoticons and the ever-present ending line of “ _so how’s masayoshi doing~~?”_. His answer began with Hazama. Her response would end with Masayoshi.

After work, his phone vibrated again, a call this time. Hazama’s voice was faint, oscillating with pain. “ _Goto, I can’t remember if-”_

Hazama was a stupid kid. The cut was on his thigh and, despite the blood, shallow. After he convinced Hazama to put down the needle and thread and _stop_ trying to sew himself up when it really, _really_ wasn’t logical or necessary or, most important of all, a good idea when Hazama was both injured and stupid.

“You don’t need stitches,” Goto said, rolling down Hazama’s torn pant leg. The blood had already dried and would be difficult to get out, but Hazama had only smiled and said that red was a convenient colour.

“I rolled over a broken bottle,” Hazama admitted, keeping his voice low. Around them, the alleyway was dark. “I was chasing Hikari.”

“The cat.”

“Yes,” he said, bashful. “I think she’s warming up to me.”

“You’re so stupid.”

After tracking down where Hazama hid his clothes, Goto helped him back to the apartment and shoved him onto the couch.

“If you go out again tonight, I’ll arrest you.” The words sounded hollow to his own ears. Hazama looked like he was going to laugh but politely nodded instead. An hour ago, he was seated in a ring of shattered glass, little shards of green bearing crowns of fresh red. The white of his scarf was pulled down, a line of thin black thread clamped between his teeth as he shakingly threaded the needle, pupils darting too fast over Goto’s face and back to the eye of the needle and the precarious journey of the twisted thread. Goto had to force it from his hands, callused fingers trailing over the white peaks of Hazama’s knuckles. _“Calm down_ ,” he said, taking in the contents of Hazama’s little first aid kit before he examined the damage. It wasn’t bad; all of Hazama’s squirming had caused some excess bleeding. It wasn’t bad, he had seen much worse, but Hazama would go out night after night until, inevitability, one day, there wouldn’t be enough gauze and thread and rapid, hushed assurances that “ _everything will be okay”_ when, inevitability, one day, it wouldn’t be.

When Goto returned to his apartment, the magazines strewn over the floor wore a familiar face.

\---


End file.
